Month: September 2017

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The Magic of Vinyl

I love that the vinyl record has made a comeback. For me it’s mostly a nostalgic thing since I know that digitally recorded music is a more accurate presentation of sound, but with vinyl it’s all about the experience.

Growing up in the 60’s & 70’s  playing records was kind of a big deal. When you broke out the albums and started playing them back to back that was an event. Usually there would be friends over or it would be the weekend. Otherwise you’d just turn on the radio. There was no streaming or mp3 players.

Just watching the record spin on the turntable is kind of hypnotic. Not to mention all the extras, lyrics and artwork that come inside the album jacket.

We are blessed with one of the coolest record stores on the planet here in Olympia, Rainy Day Records. I have spent hours on my hands and knees going through their 98 cent records. New vinyl is more pricey than I remember. A single album today can run as much as $30 so it’s worth it to look through the bargain bins.

Along with used stereo equipment, used & new cds and dvds, there’s a wall of rare records displayed as a comic shop would show their prize silver and bronze age books. They even have 45s!

Rainy Day is going to get a lot of my business in the months to come as I replace my record collection that was mostly given away before our move. Any records new or old I’ll get buy from them because places like this are a treasure and should be around forever.

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The Good Son

August was a hard month. We lost both of our dogs to cancer days just apart. Last August our youngest dog Lily died so August has not been kind as of late. One good thing did happen the last week of this past August and that was us adopting an eight year old beagle named Abel.

Janet and Abel under the apple tree.

Abel comes to us from Kindness Ranch who have many animals in their care as well as beagles that survive laboratory research. These people are truly doing the lords work. Beagles are the preferred dogs for laboratory research partly because of their mild temperament which ironically is the thing we love most about them. Abel was being fostered by a family in Redmond Washington and we found him on Petfinder.

Except for a few minor dust ups with our cat Smokey trying to be a bully, Abel’s first couple weeks with us has been pretty smooth. Janet had the brilliant idea of letting both of them sit with her in the reading room during the day. Since then Smokey has become less fearful and more accepting of Abel’s constant pacing in circles, a habit we noticed in our now angel dog Lily. They were both caged for the early years of their lives.

Wednesday we had his first vet appointment with our vet Dr. Martin who is super cool. Although she can not prescribe or recommend CBD for animals, I ran it by her and she agrees they can do no harm. Dogs have to ingest lots of toxins in their lifetime so maybe this will help even things out a bit. We want to do everything possible to make sure that Abel has a long and healthy life.